Flower Meadow

Belle Ile en Mer is an enchanted island stretching away from the Quiberon peninsula in southern Brittany.  Fennel and marjoram grow wild on the verge of its narrow lanes and the sea air is so pure it deserves to be sipped like the finest champagne.









 Along the rue des Impressionnistes on the outskirts of the tiny village Kervilahouen, where Claude Monet dwelled from September to November 1886, there is a flower meadow of breathtaking beauty filled with drowsy, drunken bees.  On the final morning of our holiday the children asked to see it one more time before heading out to the beach.  Angélique wore a simple Liberty summer dress, adapted from this book, (and sewn on the eve of our holidays when I should have been packing, sorting, and cleaning instead) and a beret made from The Uncommon Thread's merino fingering in the vibrant Meadow Grass colourway.  The pattern is Alana Dakos's Rustling Leaves Beret, an adult-sized hat which I knitted up on smaller needles to fit  my sweet daughter's head.  The hat was a treat to knit thanks to Alana's flawless pattern.  I had to shake out a sprinkling of sand after casting it off and the look on the kind hotel employee's face when I requested a plate to block the beret with was priceless! 

 

My Ravelry notes may be found here.

 I am grateful to my husband for taking all the picture above of our daughter together with this one below of Port Coton - a stone's throw away from our hotel - where Monet painted Les Aiguilles during his ten-week stay on the island.

 Mostly, however, I am deeply, deeply grateful to my wonderful parents (do you recall my father's ninetieth birthday celebration last November?) for making this holiday possible.  Thanks to them my children's heads are full of precious memories and the bond between cousins, aunts and uncles is stronger still.  My heart is aching now that we have waved good-bye to each and every precious member of this family of ours once again.  Distance can sometimes be cruel, don't you think?

Warmest wishes to you all.  I hope your summer has been filled with magical moments too. It's not over yet!

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie

 

ps Dear, dear Claire I simply must tell you how much your beautiful parcel soothed my sad heart on our return to reality yesterday.  You are the most generous-hearted lady and very soon you will be reading more about your exquisite gifts right here.  Thank you!



My Last Summer Rose

 "Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun."

Extract from Alfred Tennyson's Song From Maud

Choosing among summer flowers may be like choosing among children; each has its delights.  But if I were to describe my own unique paradise it would be brimming with roses waiting to be caressed and inhaled in the cool, early morning light.  What a display my rose garden would be: an explosion of pink flowers, a bright spectrum of colours, rearranging their blankets of colour each day, as some blooms fade and others open.  Some open simply, others are intricate and ruffled, and all sport a glorious name.  Perhaps, in some sense, every rose is like a child; wearing a carefully picked name and worthy of love.  Each rose and rosebud has a face, after all.  Which flowers would you fill your corner of paradise with, I wonder?

Frederick Childe Hassam, Gathering Flowers in a French Garden, 1888

Whilst on holiday this summer I will be sure to read Colette's My Mother's House and Sido; a book which has been patiently waiting on my dusty bedside shelf.  Colette's tribute to her mother and childhood garden is touching in its simplicity.  One can almost imagine walking alongside her on the dew-drenched lawn, kissing the roses, and talking to the flowers aligned in their terracotta pots.

And here is my last summer mouse and perhaps even my last mouse of this kind (except for a couple which have been requested as customer orders, of course).  I am hoping to make something new, something different on our return from holiday, although I will be continuing, with great pleasure, to create more hares.  Mademoiselle Rosebud has been partly inspired by one of my favourite blogs; Bateaux de papier, Amélie's diary to her daughter Elsa.  Her most recent post is a tribute to the roses in her garden and is delightful.  Please take a moment to enjoy her poetic pictures which always leave me with food for thought and a smile of pleasure.

 If pink Indian silk, French rosebud-patterned fabric and antique lace and rose-trimmed vintage ribbon are your thing then you may find Mademoiselle Rosebud here.

 

This is, I think, a shorter post than usual.  Late nights drinking sangria by the Loire, bicycle rides and children eagerly waiting to be taken to the outdoors swimming pool are making time more precious still.  And that is how it should be.  I wish you all a glorious summery Sunday and week ahead.

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie

 



Battenberg Cake (And The Necessity Of Making Apricot Jam)

Dear readers,

The frivolous and whimsical Battenberg Cake never made it on my mother's shopping list when I was little (Mr Kipling's 'Exceedingly Good Cakes' would never grace a French woman's pantry shelves, I can tell you) and so, I'm afraid, it turned into something of a childhood fantasy.*  Nowadays, each time I catch sight of a picture of a Battenberg Cake I start to smile uncontrollably.  There's something about those pink and yellow squares which conjures up images of tea with Alice at the Madhatter's or a little girl serving cake to her teddy bears on her doll's teaset.  And the marzipan which neatly wraps it up?  Well that transports me back to my mother's Christmas cake, of course, and stealing small slabs of it from beneath her nose to share with my best friend!  Yes, I must confess, I was a gluttonous child. 

 The recipe above from one of my favourite cake books, Fiona Cairns' Bake & Decorate, (it really is an aesthetic joy with some glorious tea time recipes) has been calling out to me for a while now and I do believe the moment has come to make it: what better time than a heatwave for baking a cake, right?  But first I had to satisfy an odd urge.  Can you imagine wearing a knitted version of the retro Battenberg Cake?

 

Well here it is!  A very different version of this shawl made last month: Dani Sunshine's beautiful Vintage Bouquet.



I think this shawl is a lot healthier for me than a thick slice of Battenberg cake but it is, for the knitter and the wearer, much more of a treat.  The pink yarn you see is Artisan Yarns Silk And Baby Camel Fingering (with a luxurious 65% silk content).  I combined it with the creamy-coloured, merino Madelinetosh Sock.  Aside from its tantalizing colourways I noticed how many have lauded the Silk and Baby Camel's softness but its sheen and lightweight texture after blocking is worthy of any fairy tale!  I think it is probably much more addictive than Battenberg Cake too :-)

 

My Ravelry notes, for those who are interested, are here. I'm not one to brag (really not)but I'm delighted to see that in a few short hours this shawl has earned ninety four hearts and some very sweet words too over on Ravelry.  What a wonderful community of generous-hearted people it is!

 

Before I turn to making this childhood fantasy cake of mine I need to fill seven pots with the apricot jam my children helped me make today (it was only 35°C today, after all).  Five kilos of sweetly-scented, blushing French apricots were split and sorted by Angélique.  I believe she also threw the sugar in and a split vanilla pod for good measure.  Dear Tristan performed his usual magical bout of stirring.  In all honesty, as I stood over the copper pot and breathed in the simmering jam, I decided there is NO smell more divine and more French than apricot jam. 

So now I have the required apricot jam to glue the Battenberg cake together.

 

And now I won't let you leave before you share with me which sweet treat transports you back to your childhood! 

 

 A bientôt,

 

Stéphanie

 

* Is the Battenberg Cake a purely British culinary tradition?  Are my readers in America, etc. familiar with it?

Verity Damson

Dear readers,

 

With every passing year I am learning to be more Proustian in my alertness to the look and feel of my surroundings.  It's a skill which requires being present in the instant with niggling worries locked away and a slow, steady heartbeat.   I still haven't mastered the art of standing still for long: my mother has been teaching me the philosophy behind Chi Kung and so far I cannot stand like a tree for longer than five minutes.  I prefer instead to be in motion and find my senses to be more alert to my surroundings when walking.

 

Now that the sweet cherry season has finished I am scouring our beautiful countryside for damson trees.  I know the fruit will be ready to pick mid-August once we have returned from our holiday and I want to make the most of them as soon as they are ripe.  Damsons, the close sibling of the garden plum, are both generous and inviting, weighing down their brittle branches like great purple gems. As long as you have plenty of sugar in store they make glorious crumbles and cobblers and a rich dark-coloured jam.  There is, of course, the famous damson cheese which Monty Don mentions in The Ivington Diaries; an intense and superb conserve to be enjoyed with game, lamb, and a good strong cheese.

 Aside from its rich, deep flavour the damson is a true aesthetic charm.  One of my favourite descriptions of its beauty comes from The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift.

'I have never left the damsons so late on the tree, and their emerald felsh is succulent and sweet beneath their blue-black coats.  When I later turn them out on to the kitchen table, the heap of shining black fruit with their matt powder-blue overlay is flecked with narrow pale gold leaves.  What a colour scheme for a room!  My little study perhaps?  How lovely to paint one's rooms the colours of the fruit in the garden.'

I may not be able, for the time being, to paint our home's walls the same shades as apples, plums and pears (just wait until we buy own house) but I was able to create a doll dressed in rich purple.  Let me introduce you to Miss Verity Damson whose heart belongs to late summer when the damson plums ripen and glisten on the old plum tree in her garden.  She loves to make damson crumble or to top a rich buttery cake with plums and sugar.  She also loves, as you may have noticed, the colour purple. I had so much fun sewing this doll who reminds me of the Kate Greenaway illustrations I relished as a child. She wears pantaloons stitched from 1900s hand-embroidered tulle and trimmed with antique creamy lace and I have embroidered little violets on her Liberty fabric bonnet.

 The damsons may not be ready to pick yet but, believe me, I spent many an hour dreaming of them in the presence of this little lady.  I think, perhaps, I should make some more friends for Verity to bring to fruition more of my dreams.

 

Happy, beautiful summer to you all!

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie

 

ps Verity Damson has flown to a new home in England.

 

 

 



Vintage Wolves

Dear readers,

 

Like most children Angélique loves books which is fabulous because the whole family shares her passion.  Reading to Angélique, however, requires concentration for she is, I believe, a child who seeks out detail.  Before each storybook page has been turned Angélique will want to read beyond the words deep into the minds and hearts of each character.  "What is he thinking?" she invariably asks or "how does she feel?" is another favourite question of hers.  Angélique's questions probe deeper than her three years in my experience and make reading an intense and rewarding activity.

If my daughter has a fondness for detail I love variations on a theme and so I have used this passion of hers to fuel one of mine.  When Angélique enjoyed Goldilocks And The Three Bears I enjoyed finding different editions of the same story relishing the styles of each illustrator and picking out the small twists in the tale which made it differ from the other versions.

 The top book, translated from German, is Angélique's favourite.  I, however, simply love Charlotte Gastaut's vibrant artwork seen below. (I have other books from the same illustrator which I hope to show you some time soon.)

Angélique's most cherished storybooks usually feature a big, bad wolf and Little Red Riding Hood is, unsurprisingly, her greatest love.  For weeks now this daughter of mine has risen from bed and asked me to snuggle down beside her to share my version of this fairytale before starting the day.  Every morning!  Back in February when there was snow on the ground I found this old-fashioned Little Red Riding Hood fabric (which also exists in blue) and decided that I would turn it into a dress from this book for summer.  I trimmed it with three 1940's red and white buttons and made two pockets from polka-dot red cotton.  And then began the quest to find a knitted hooded cape pattern on Ravelry.

 

 Alicia Plummer's Spritely fitted my requirements perfectly and I fell for the undeniable charms of this version named Butterflies In The Melon Patch.  I enjoyed the butterfly lacework which I knitted during my travels to England last week.  The pattern, though simple, lacks the clarity of others, and I found myself having to use my head a little when stitch numbers did not add up.  I also reached the conclusion that scarlet is not my favourite colour and that, whilst I love Madelinetosh sock yarns dearly, I cannot help but wonder why 'hand-dyed' is a good excuse for accepting a pricey yarn with a high number of white flecks in it?  Does this strike you as an unreasonable thought?

My Ravelry notes may be found here.

The past weeks have required a lot of family teamwork and detailed scribblings in various diaries to get through successfully.  With one more exam for Héloïse to go we are reaching the end of the French school year with weary heads but smiling faces.  It has been a beautiful year full of accomplishments and I am, like most parents, so very proud of my children.  I have also been suffering from migraines again and backache so I am looking forward to an appointment with my osteopath this Monday.

Thank you so much for your continued interest (and orders) on Facebook!  I am currently working on a doll which, hopefully, should be ready this week.

Finally, as may know, Google Reader will be closing on July 1st... hence the reason why so many are popping over to Bloglovin.  If you would like to follow Millefeuilles over there please just click here.

With the school holidays fast approaching I am hoping to write more frequently than my current fortnightly posts.  Fingers crossed!

A bientôt,

Stephanie (and Little Red Riding Hood)

 

 

 

 



Flamboyant

Dear readers,

Summer is waiting in the wings with costume changes, stage whispers, and bouquets.  There is a spectacular, spine-tingling show of colour everywhere with, after the rainiest spring on record, a backdrop made up of a million green leaves unfurled.  I would gladly call this paradise but there is something almost brazen or burlesque about this show the flowers are staging.  If they could move they would probably strut and who could blame them?  I am quite distracted by their beauty and as I stop and stare (and talk) at them I am reminded of the flowers of my childhood garden: snapdragons, columbines, phlox, marigolds, candytuft, canterbury bells, wallflowers, roses.  The list of flowers my mother grew - and still grows - is gloriously long and I'm pretty sure that each one of those blooms had a face and a personality too.  Snapdragons really do snap ferociously when you pinch their lower jaws and whilst some admire the lantern-shaped petals of the exotic two-toned fuchsia I see a graceful ballerina dancing.

One early morning this week, made bold by the perky call of the cuckoo,  Mickaël, Héloïse and I took the well-worn path, flanked with fluttering tall grasses, into the vineyards.  It was a grey day and the sulky sky even managed to rob Héloïse's hair of its usual coppery glint.  My mind has been filled with flamboyant colour, and flowers, these past days and I have found myself knitting in shades I would not usually favour; the violet and bright pink of a fuchsia.  It turns out, I feel, that the clouds offered the perfect backdrop to this glorious riot of colour.

 

 

 



Vintage Bouquet, by Dani Sunshine, is a beautiful pattern.  I first fell for its charms when it was first published in May on one of my favourite knitting blogs, here and, having already enjoyed two of Dani's previous knits (you can see them here and here), I knew I was in for a good time knitting-wise!  It's a flawless and simple pattern which offers the perfect dose of excitment with its flower petal-shaped lace and helpful notes on blocking too.

 

Should you be interested my notes, as always, are on Ravelry.

 

If you had been with us that morning in the vines you would have caught sight of Héloïse, bleary with sleep but brightly dressed in her last dance performance costume.  And look at the pictures we took of her a year ago to the day!

Please wish HéloIse luck for the 18th and 19th June when she will be sitting the first part of her Baccalauréat exams in French and History.

 

I have so many things to share with you over the next few weeks but in the meantime I have just completed a summery mouse who is wearing very different colours to my daughter and who should be making an appearance over at Madame Millefeuilles this weekend!

 

Edit:  Mademoiselle Linden Flower has just been whisked away from her Linden tree lined Parisian gardens.  Here is picture of her in her 1950s silk dress with 1900 vintage lace-trimmed tulle pantaloons and silky wrap:

Once again I feel compelled to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your generous, kind comments left on my previous post.  You give me so much joy!

 

A bientôt,

 

Stéphanie

 

ps I know Héloïse is a slender young lady but, my goodness, you should see how much she eats!